medlatest Editorial

The harbingers of doom would have it that the medtech sales tax bit of Obamacare would reduce investment in innovation and in so doing kill people by not offering them lifesaving technologies that haven’t yet been invented. Mad argument maybe, but the real point is how well medtech industry has campaigned against the tax.

Medlatest is pausing for breath over the early part of next week as we honour the Queen’s 60th year on the throne. Forecast; Rain.

Does any hip surgeon still use an “acquired” British Rail Soup spoon for reaming the acetabulum? Those were the days. This week we’re reflecting on what’s changed in medical devices over the past 60 years.

Convincing a surgeon to use a blunt suture needle is akin to asking him to ditch the Aston Martin in favour of the Micra. It’ll work, but not in quite such a satisfying way. Maybe FDA can do a better job than we did twenty years ago when even HIV/AIDS didn’t prove convincing.

While we’d all have preferred not to have seen the recent PIP/Hip problems, there’s no doubt in our mind that the hubbub presents a unique opportunity to adopt measures that could show the world how to do this stuff.

When a pioneering surgeon is sat on the same table as an advocate of evidence-based medicine and greater regulatory controls, it’s easy enough to predict that their views might not align perfectly. So it was with the holding of a UK Parliamentary Select committee on medical devices regulation, held last Wednesday.

Medical Device news roundup for week ending May 25th.

It’s a solid set of figures with some genuine highlights, not least the OUS sales increase and positive results from some key new product introductions and acquisitions. Medtronic is sounding pretty upbeat and putting a few bad experiences behind it.

Covidien’s quietly recalling its Roticulators for packaging concerns, but seems to be doing so by stealth rather than adopting the slightly more communicative route one might expect to see.

The UK Commons select committee on science and technology is meeting tomorrow (Wednesday 23rd May) to explore how to ensure the safety of medical implants before they enter the market, and how best to collect clinical data once an implant is in use, from the perspective of clinicians, patients and scientists.

Consumers union is bent on regulatory tightening and even resorting to print ads in its quest to convince Joe Public that the evil medical device manufacturers are trying to harm him. One wonders whether they have the right objective in mind though because the regulatory regime they might end up with could actually stifle innovation and be more harm to Joe Public than the present set-up.

It’s been a fascinatingly diverse week with a steady flow of medical device news. It’s notably been a week containing a cardiovascular congress in Paris (EuroPCR) and an arthroscopy congress in Orlando (AANA). Anyway, it’s online right now.

One benefit of being a commentator on the medtech industry is that we get faced with masses of information to distil into something meaningful. Just occasionally it’s nice to have a time-out and ruminate on what we’re seeing happening and how that might pan out.

Hospitals and purchasers have woken up to the threat that medical device companies will find ways to dump the burden of the 2.3% tax levy on them. So they’re lobbying the taxman to make sure there are no loopholes through which companies can jump to deduct the tax from income while also passing on the costs to the customer.

Following last week’s coverage of Joe Hage’s no2point3 campaign, John Eckberg, Cook Medical’s Director of Media Relations has provided us with his own (and presumably Cook’s) view of the matter. It’s no surprise, given Cook’s previous well-expressed vehement antipathy towards the bill, to find the company broadly supportive of the campaign to repeal the act, specifically the medical device company tax levy.

It’s that time again. Friday’s the chance to review the week just gone. This week it’s been Heart Rhythm 2012, so there’s plenty to chew on as the controversies and indeed the advances keep coming.